Dollhouse (2009) season 1

The cyberpunk TV series Dollhouse, created by Joss Whedon, ran on the Fox Network in 2009 and 2010. Whedon’s career was up and down at the time. The Firefly TV series in 2002 was a disaster and was cancelled before the end of the first season although it later built a cult following. There was general surprise when Dollhouse was renewed for a second season. The ratings were mediocre but it did well with the demographics that advertisers cared about. To some extent that had been the case with Buffy as well.

The key concept behind Dollhouse, personality uploads and downloads, had been tinkered with by various science fiction writers, notably William Gibson. But as someone famous once said, if a story is good it probably isn’t new and if it’s new it probably isn’t good. That certainly applies to science fiction ideas. And Dollhouse is based on an idea that is definitely a good one.

Digital personality uploads are of course total scientific nonsense but Joss Whedon was the guy behind a long-running series about a high school girl who battles vampires so he clearly feels that the coolness of an idea is much more important than its plausibility. And he’s right. And in this case it’s an idea that has links to pop culture obsessions going back to the 1950s such as brainwashing.

It has affinities with movies like A Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell which deal with questions such as artificial interference in the workings of the mind, the blurring of the line between reality and fantasy, the possibility of artificially created realities and what it means to be human. And what it means to have choices. And how choices are nowhere near as simple as they seem. In Dollhouse there are free choices and choices made under duress, or sometimes it’s just a choice between two bad options.

Echo (Eliza Dushku) has been created by the Dollhouse. The Dollhouse is run by Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams) although it seems certain that there is someone (or some organisation) much more powerful behind her. We are given no idea at all who or what is behind the Dollhouse and what its true purpose is. Is it a private corporation? Is it run by organised crime? Is it a government covert operation? This series deals in multiple levels of ambiguity and paranoia. Maybe nothing is as it seems to be.

For each case a Dollhouse agent has a different personality uploaded, tailored to the mission. In between missions Echo has her Echo personality restored. That’s not her original personality. She had been a girl named Caroline who had landed herself in very serious legal trouble. There is a suggestion that her original Caroline personality has been permanently erased. Now she is merely Echo, who has no memory of any of the personalities that have been uploaded to her brain. She seems to have no memories of anything before she arrived at the Dollhouse.

When imprinted with a suitable personality the agents are referred to as Actives. Between missions they are Dolls. The Dolls are very child-like, very passive, with no emotions and no sex drive and no desires of any kind. They are very obedient.

One inherent weakness in this series, or at least one aspect that probably hurt its ratings, is that Eliza Dushku is effectively playing an entirely different character in each episode and between missions she’s playing Echo who has no actual personality. This means the audience has no actual heroine with whom to identify, or for whom to develop an affection. This would have alienated some viewers although it does of course provide Eliza Dushku with an exciting acting challenge and if you stick with it it makes this an extremely interesting series.

While the Actives are given various missions (including security jobs and even secret agent-type jobs) It becomes very obvious very early that on most of those missions they are acting as at best, courtesans and at worst, high-class call girls. Even worse, Adelle DeWitt knowingly sends girls like Echo out on prostitution jobs knowing that the jobs are very high-risk. Worst of all, DeWitt doesn’t even bother finding out the true nature of the risks. As long as the client pays it doesn’t matter. Even the Mob has higher ethical standards. While that is presumably not its true function in practice The Dollhouse is a whorehouse.

But the twist is that the Dolls do not know they have been used as prostitutes. In their hazy dream-state they don’t know about the missions and wouldn’t understand if they were told. Are you a prostitute if you don’t know about it? Is Miss DeWitt a madam if she sends the girls out on prostitution assignments but the girls will have no memory of it And if a mission requires engaging in criminal activities (and some do) are they criminals? Is it our memories that make us who we are (a question addressed memorably in Blade Runner)? If the Dolls have no memories are they human?

And it seems that if someone is deemed to be a risk then the Dollhouse will take precautions. Possibly very drastic precautions.

The Girlpower! thing does get overdone. Petite women easily beating up huge tough guys. It’s a problem because the silliness of this does at times undermine the serious tone.

This is a long way from the teen angst of Buffy and it’s clearly aimed at an older audience. This series gets into X-Files levels of paranoia and then pushes the paranoia even further. This is serious conspiracy theory stuff. And the cyberpunk elements become more and more apparent.

There are fascinating relationships between the characters. Does Miss DeWitt have maternal feelings towards Echo? Does Echo see her handler Boyd Langton as a father figure? Does he see himself this way? And there are explicitly romantic and sexual relationships involving several key characters but what happens if you’re in a relationship with someone who doesn’t actually exist?

Episode Guide

In the first episode Echo is uploaded with the personality of a top-flight hostage negotiator. This episode launches the series on its way very successfully. It also introduces a couple of what are obviously going to be extended story arcs. There’s an FBI agent named Ballard investigating the Dollhouse although he’s been told to drop the matter because the Dollhouse doesn’t exist.

In episode 2, Time Target, the main story in intercut with multiple flashbacks. Non-linear narratives will be a major feature of this series.

We get some slight backstory on Echo’s handler, Langton. We find out that something went very badly wrong three months earlier and that those events may be continuing to exert an influence. We get hints that the Dollhouse people make mistakes. And we start to get an edge of paranoia creeping in. We also find out that when a guy wants to take a girl on a camping trip she should always decline. It will end in tears. Good episode.

In episode 3, Stage Fright, Echo’s job is to act as a bodyguard to a pop singer. The problem is that the singer is not just a diva but a psycho bitch and to avoid arousing her wrath Echo has to be a bodyguard without being aware that she’s a bodyguard. Someone is trying to kill the singer but there are very twisted complications.

In episode 4, Gray Hour, the mission is an art heist and it’s an armed robbery. Eliza Dushku really shines this one, getting a chance to explore the Echo persona.

In episode 5, True Believer, Echo goes undercover for the Feds. Her cover will be perfect since with an implanted personality she will believe her own cover story completely. It’s an investigation of a religious cult with obvious parallels to the 1993 Waco disaster.

In episode 6, Man on the Street, Echo is again a whore, this time entertaining a tech tycoon. I love the way this doesn’t develop in anything like the direction you’re going to be expecting.

In episode 7, Echoes, an experimental drug has infected a college campus. And some of the Dolls have been exposed as well.

In episode 8, Needs, things start to go awry in the Dollhouse. The Dolls are doing things they shouldn’t do. But Miss DeWitt has no doubt that she will get things under control again.

In episode 9, A Spy in the House of Love, the extended story arcs start to develop a lot more fully. As the title suggests the Dollhouse is under threat from within. And we see a very surprising side of Miss DeWitt.

In Episode 10, Haunted, the Dollhouse has a new client and she’s a bit unusual, given that she’s dead. And she thinks she was murdered.

Episodes 11 and 12, Briar Rose and Omega, make up a two-part story which explores interesting ramifications of the technology.

The season finale, Epitaph One, was made on the assumption that the series was not not going to be renewed for a second season and never went to air. Do not watch this episode until after watching season 2!

Final Thoughts

Dollhouse season one is moderately cerebral, provocative and willing to engage with slightly controversial subject matter. It’s a lot better than I expected and it’s highly recommended.

Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982-83)

Tales of the Gold Monkey is a U.S. action/adventure TV series which ran for a single season from 1982 to 1983. It was created by Donald P. Bellisario who was also responsible for such cool 80s TV classics as Magnum, P,I. and Airwolf. The cancellation of the series was not due to poor ratings. The show was a huge hit. It was network politics that killed it.

Although you could certainly be forgiven for assuming that Tales of the Gold Monkey was clearly hoping to capitalise on the recent success of Raiders of the Lost Ark (it does belong to the same “rugged individualistic adventurer in exotic locales” genre) in fact Bellisario pitched the series to the network a year before Spielberg’s movie was released. His inspiration was the classic 1939 Howard Hawks movie Only Angels Have Wings.

The setting is the fictional South Pacific island Bora Gora, a French colonial possession.

Jake Cutter (Stephen Collins) is an American airman with a small air cargo operation using a Grumman Goose amphibian (which happens to be my favourite aircraft of all time). He has an offsider named Corky (Jeff MacKay), a genius mechanic but with a chronically poor memory due to over-indulgence in alcoholic beverages. He also has a bad-tempered one-eyed dog named Jack.

Jake has a habit of trying to rescue damsels in distress but in the pilot episode his latest attempt, involving cute red-headed chanteuse Sarah Stickney White (Caitlin O’Heaney), gets him into all kinds of trouble. Sarah will become a regular character. There’s something very important about Sarah that Jake doesn’t know. She’s a spy.

Another regular character is Bon Chance Louie. He owns the Monkey Bar which is the island’s social hub and he’s the local representative of the French Government. He has the reputation of being lucky. He did after all survive the guillotine. In the pilot he is played by Ron Moody but Roddy McDowall takes over the role in the series.

Another regular is German missionary Willie Tenboom (John Calvin). We know from the start that he’s a German spy but he’s a sympathetic character and a nice guy. He is devoted to his parishioners who seem to be entirely attractive young women. One of them acts as his personal assistant. If she’s a good girl he gives her a blessing. She looks forward to that. There’s nothing a girl likes more than a good blessing. The Reverend believes that young women need to be blessed as often as possible.

And then there Princess Koji (Marta DuBois). She’s a Japanese princess involved in various ventures of dubious legality. She has a private samurai army. She’s a sexy bad girl, but not really evil.

Jake is also in trouble with Jack, having lost the dog’s false eye (which is a sapphire mounted in an opal) in a poker game.

There are monkey-men, venomous snakes and samurai warriors. And the island of Baku is an active volcano. A very active volcano.

There are spies everywhere on Bora Gora, from various nations. There are German, American and Japanese spies and possibly some freelancers. The German spies are in search of the legendary gold monkey of the island of Baku.

You have to remember that this is 1938. Japan was at peace with the U.S. and France. Germany was at peace with the U.S. and France. Princess Koji does not have the slightest dislike for the French or the Americans. She’s a businesswoman. Louis has no issues with her as long as she doesn’t break any French laws within French territory (which she never does). She’s oddly fond of Jake and would rather like to get him into bed. The Reverend Willie Tenboom is an agent of German military intelligence but he’s not Gestapo and he’s a seriously nice guy. Everyone likes him and he likes everyone. Sarah is an American agent but it’s peacetime so her job is just to gather information. All the recurring characters are in fact good guys. They all get along pretty well.

Episode Guide

In the first episode there are spies and double agents everywhere and a plot to build a super-bomb. In the second episode, Shanghaied, Corky is shanghaied by a disreputable sea captain who needs his ship repaired. The captain is involved in an illicit and very nasty trade.

In the third episode, Black Pearl, a flying buddy of Jake’s from the old days in China shows up. He’s a bit disreputable but mostly he’s just an irresponsible dreamer, forever chasing after imaginary treasures or lost cities. Now he’s hooked up with a Watusi tribe who live on a nearby island. It’s crazy. What is a Watusi tribe doing on a Pacific island? Jake’s buddy is sure it has something to do with King Solomon’s Mines.

In the fourth episode, Escape from Death Island, Jake and Corky fly a visitor to a French penal island and find themselves imprisoned.

In Trunk from the Past a trunk is sent to Sarah containing relics collected by her late archaeologist father. He devoted his life to finding the tomb of a certain Egyptian Pharaoh and came up with a crazy theory that the tomb was located on an island in the South Pacific.

In episode six another old flying buddy of Jake’s turns up. And Randall McGraw (Lance LeGault) is always trouble. His cargo plane has gone down and it was carrying something that simply must be retrieved.

In Honor Thy Brother a Japanese fighter pilot wants revenge, Corky gets a wife he doesn’t want and Jack gets his eye back. Next up Jake crash lands on an island within the Japanese Mandate and it’s inhabited by Amish. And a tiger. And a Japanese officer obsessed with cowboy movies. In the next episode something very bad has happened to Sarah on a mission to Manila. It has something to do with General Macarthur.

In the next episode a baseball star visiting the island lands himself in very big trouble involving a local girl. Trouble that could get him lynched. In the following episode Jake, Corky and Sarah crash land on an island inhabited by apes, and they find an ape-boy. In High Stakes Lady Jake is tempted by high stakes poker and a glamorous blonde and of course he falls for her. But the stakes are more than just money.

In Force of Habit Jake discovers that nuns can be pretty dangerous.

In Last Chance Louie it’s Louie who finds that the past cannot be escaped. A new guest arrives on the island and Louis immediately shoots him. It seems that Louis is embarked on a course of self-destruction but he refuses to explain his strange behaviour.

In the next-to-last episode the trouble starts with an eclipse and then a politico-religious cut leader decides that Sarah must be punished for offending the gods. And then things get explosive. Literally.

In the final episode Princess Koji hires Jake as his bodyguard. It’s a very dangerous occupation.

Final Thoughts

There’s plenty of cheesiness but it’s undoubtedly deliberate and it’s combined with a considerable amount of coolness which for me is an intoxicating mix. The cast is uniformly excellent.

For my money Tales of the Gold Monkey is the best action-adventure series of the 80s. There’s just enough humour and romance, the plots are delightfully implausible but fun, the entire cast is excellent and it looks like a very very expensive series (which it was) in which the money was well spent. Very highly recommended.

The DVD release is still in print and extras include a very good “making of” documentary.

The Prisoner TV tie-in novel

In 1969 and 1970 three original novels based upon the television series The Prisoner were published by Ace Books. Since there is some ambiguity about their place in the timeline of the series it’s probably a very sound idea to watch the series before reading the novels. In the case of the first novel you really must be at least vaguely familiar with the TV series. That doesn’t mean you need to rewatch the entire series before reading it, but you need to know what the series is about.

The first of the novels is The Prisoner (later reissued as I Am Not a Number!) which was written by Thomas M. Disch. Disch was a prominent figure in American New Wave science fiction in the 60s. Given that The Prisoner has a very slight science fictional flavour and that New Wave SF tended to be paranoid and edgy Disch was perhaps a fairly appropriate writer for the assignment.

A man and a woman are having dinner in a restaurant. The relationship between them is not entirely clear but there’s some heavy flirting going on. The man has just quit his job. The woman is surprised that he was allowed to do so. He has bought himself a little cottage, a converted gatehouse, in Pembroke in Wales. He has only seen photographs of the cottage but he is sure it will suit him. He has spent the day looking at the furniture he would love to buy for his new home but it’s all hopelessly out of his price range. He will have to be content with cheaper more utilitarian furnishings.

He boards the train for Pembroke. A taxi takes him to a village which is disturbing in its excessive attempts at cuteness and cosiness. He had never been here before but it seems oddly but subtly familiar. He spots his cottage. It looks just as it did in the photos. He attaches no significance to the number 6 on the door. He is puzzled to find that all his furniture is there - the furniture he had fantasised about buying. The furniture that nobody had known that he desired.

He quickly discovers that he is a prisoner. Everybody in the Village is either a prisoner or a jailer but there is no telling which are which. Everybody is referred to by a number. He is Number 6. The person in charge is Number 2.

So it begins exactly as does the TV series, except that it’s not quite the same. There’s that  slight feeling that he’s been here before. If you’re familiar with the TV series you will know what’s going on, except for Number 6’s feeling of déjà vu. There’s something else going on here. And Number 6 has some strange gaps in his memory.

Of course if you know the TV series you know that Number 6 is a British secret agent who has quit the Secret Service. Disch obviously assumes that you do know the TV series and that you do know this but oddly (and I assume deliberately) the words spy or secret agent are never mentioned. Perhaps it’s those gaps in Number 6’s memory. He is obviously aware that he had worked for the government in some capacity connected with security or intelligence but perhaps he no longer remembers exactly what his job had been. Perhaps he no longer possesses the information that Number 2 wants.

When writing a TV tie-in novel it is essential to do nothing to undermine the premise of the TV series. Disch obeys this rule. There is nothing in the novel that is in any way in conflict with the TV series. It’s clearly the same Village. Number 6 is clearly the same Number 6. The themes of the novel are all present in the TV series. This is not a reboot or a re-imagining, but nor is it merely a retelling of the same story.

Disch has added nothing but has put slightly slightly more emphasis on aspects present or implicit in the series. Memory and identity become extremely important. Number 6 is desperately trying to cling to his sense of identity but if one loses parts of one’s memory one’s identity is in a sense threatened. That’s the case not just with Number 6 but with Number 41. She is the woman with whom he was having dinner at the beginning of the novel. Or she might be. Her name is really Liora. Or it might be. It might also be Lorna. How does she come to be in the Village? Is she a prisoner or a jailer? Can Number 6 trust her? Are any of the things she has told him true? And can she trust Number 6?

The paranoia goes deeper. There are things that are genuinely puzzling to Number 2. There are things about Number 6 that are not in line with Number 2’s expectations. And Number 2 also does not know whom he can trust. Even worse, he’s not sure if Number 1 trusts him.

So Disch amps up the paranoia and the sense of an intricate web of lies and deceptions, and the threat to identity. All of which are of course part and parcel of being a spy. And Disch handles these aspects with great skill.

And then Number 6 is persuaded to mount a production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, after which things get seriously weird.

I’m not sure this novel could really be considered as strictly belonging to The Prisoner canon but it’s an interesting riff on the same theme and a wild crazy science fiction spy thriller. Highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed The Prisoner (1967-68) TV series.

The Lost World (1999-2002)

The Lost World is an adventure TV series based (rather loosely) on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic 1912 science fiction adventure novel of the same name. It was a Canadian-US-New Zealand-Australian co-production and was shot in Australia (in Queensland). It ran for three seasons.

The two-hour pilot episode (which was later split in two to comprise the first two episodes of the first season) is more than enough to get me interested. The fact that it’s directed by Richard Franklin helps. He was not only experienced but had an impressive background in feature films and gives it a cinematic look and feel.

The time setting is the 1920s, a good choice. This is a story that would be just too wildly implausible in a later time period.

Professor Challenger has found a manuscript, apparently the record of a journey to a hitherto unknown plateau in the wilds of South America. Challenger is convinced that the evidence in the manuscript will cause all existing theories on human evolution to be tossed out the window. The dinosaurs were not creatures that existed millions of years before humans. They are our contemporaries! The scientific establishment mocks him. The mockery is led by Dr Arthur Summerlee (Michael Sinelnikoff). Challenger announces that he will lead an expedition to find hard evidence. Dr Summerlee can join the expedition if he dares. Dr Summerlee does dare.

Other volunteers include experienced hunter and explorer Lord John Roxton and American newspaperman Ned Malone (David Orth). Malone has experience with hydrogen balloons and there’s no other way to reach the plateau. But there’s no money to fund the expedition until wealthy heiress Marguerite Krux offers unlimited funds as long as she can go along.

All of the characters have their own quirks. Challenger was one of Conan Doyle’s great creations, a gloriously bad-tempered argumentative tempestuous scientific genius. Peter McCauley plays him as rude, arrogant and overbearing but clearly a man with vision and charisma. That’s close enough to Conan Doyle’s conception for me. William Snow as Lord John Roxton is extremely good - he’s cynical and abrasive but he has charisma.

The weak link is the cast Jennifer O’Dell as jungle girl Veronica - she’s not terrible but she doesn’t convince us that she is a young woman who has lived alone in the jungle for eleven years. She seems too modern, too citified. Her attitudes are stridently and irritatingly late 90s. She’s totally out of place in this series. I found myself disliking her quite a bit at first, even though I have a thing for cute scantily-clad blonde jungle girls. I did however gradually warm to her quite a bit.

The standout performer is Rachel Blakely as Marguerite Krux. From the start Marguerite is a Woman of Mystery. We soon suspect that she is a Sexy Bad Girl. And then we discover that she is a treacherous scheming bitch and she’s well-versed in the art of using sex as a weapon. Which just made me love her even more. Marguerite isn’t trustworthy but she isn’t evil. Rachel Blakely oozes delicious naughtiness. She’s a delight.

The best thing about this series is its old-fashioned feel. The writers are not constantly agonising over whether the scripts might be problematic. What matter is - would this be a cool story for the next episode? There’s a refreshing lack of ideological lecturing.

And the writers are not afraid to let their imaginations run a bit wild.

The CGI dinosaurs are really only there because they were a commercial necessity. They were a major selling point. They’re of no importance. The focus is invariably on the strange bizarre human societies that our explorers find. And they’re strange and bizarre in interesting ways. There are villains who are not necessarily villains, wise virtuous leaders who may be neither wise nor virtuous, evil queens who might me misguided rather than evil. The stories are impressively varied and are not always resolved by heroic deeds.

It must have become obvious early that six regular cast members would be unwieldy so in most episodes we get two storylines running in parallel, each featuring three of the regular characters.

The Episodes

The pilot episode gets our adventurers to the plateau. There are indeed dinosaurs. And hostile tribes. And ape-men. Professor Challenger can easily collect the hard evidence he needs. The one fly in the ointment is that there is no way off the plateau.

They meet a cute blonde jungle girl, Veronica. She has lived on the plateau for eleven years since her scientist parents disappeared. She doesn’t care about science but she is obsessed with the idea of finding her parents.

In the next episode, More Than Human, our explorers find a lost culture. It’s like ancient Rome but ruled by lizard-men with humans as their slaves. This episode borrows a little from Planet of the Apes and very heavily from countless gladiator movies. How many clichés can you pack into 45 minutes? A lot! It doesn’t matter. The action keeps racing along and it’s fun.

Nectar is great fun. Giant killer bees! A sinister bee-woman! And a hideous fate awaiting if your heroes cannot escape from the world’s largest bee-hive.

Cave of Fear gives us a deliciously evil villainess, Lady Cassandra Yorkton (Rebecca Gibney). And the various members of the party have to confront guilts and fears from their pasts.

In Salvation Summerlee saves a drowning child and is accused of witchcraft. The most interesting thing here is a tribe that follows a religion that is a blending of Aztec religion and Roman Catholicism. And we discover something odd about Marguerite. She can read ancient inscriptions in a language of which she knows nothing. She doesn’t know how, but somehow she just knows the meaning of the inscriptions.

There’s been plenty of fun so far but obviously the series needed vampires. So in Blood Lust we get vampires. We get a sexy lady vampire who lives in a gothic castle. Both she and the castle look like they’re straight out of Hammer gothic horror film. It’s all very silly but very enjoyable.

In Out of Time Marguerite may have discovered her destiny as a high priestess and Veronica may have discovered her destiny as a mother. Packed with too many ideas most of which are pretty cringe and coherence falls by the wayside but somehow it works. It works because this series has that pulp fiction/old-time adventure yarn/B-movie sensibility that just makes it so much fun.

Paradise Found turns out to be the most flawed paradise imaginable.

In The Beast Within Malone is killed, but maybe not permanently. Whether the sham who saved him intended to do him a favour or not remains to be seen.

In Creatures of the Dark Marguerite, Malone and Challenger are trapped in a cave-in, they find a lot of gold and a lost race. All very interesting but the fact that they’re all sitting on top of an active volcano is of more immediate concern.

Things get seriously weird in Absolute Power. The explorers find an ancient ruin but there are some odd things about it. Such as the presence of a nuclear reactor. And then things get much stranger and maybe we’re dealing with two different realities at once. An ambitious episode but it’s pretty cool and it makes excellent use of the two storylines running in parallel technique.

Camelot is delightfully quirky. A distant descendant of King Arthur rules a tiny kingdom in which time has stood still. There are brave knights, dragons to slay (the dragons are of course dinosaur) and maidens to rescue. And of course, like King Arthur, this young king has a traitor in his midst. This episode is whimsical fun.

In Unnatural Selection Challenger meets an old scientific colleague who is conducting certain experiments. We quickly find out that he is a full-blown mad scientist. There are definite Island of Dr Moreau vibes here. And the secondary storyline involves a fairy princess!

Time After Time involves two time travellers with two very different agendas and Marguerite learns things about her destiny. There are also ninjas, but fortunately they’re remarkably incomp
etent ninjas.

In Prodigal Father Veronica finally finds her long-lost father but the reunion doesn’t turn out as she’d hoped. At this stage in the series you’re probably thinking that the one great disappointment is that we haven’t seen Marguerite and Veronica mud-wrestling. Well that omission is corrected in this episode.

Birthright begins with Marguerite, Ned and Roxton digging up the mummy of a long-dead Egyptian pharaoh. Only he’s not so dead. And he has a sister and our adventurers get mixed up in the family feud.

Resurrection starts with Roxton getting killed. Well, sort of. A strange disturbing child offers him a deal. He can live, but another man must die in his place. Roxton doesn’t like this idea but the kid adds that unless he accepts the deal Marguerite will die. Roxton will accept any conditions in order to save her. There’s also a magical sword involved.

In The Chosen One Roxton and Marguerite save a young man.

In Prophecy our explorer meet a larcenous gypsy fortune-teller, and there are disturbing signs that the raptors and capable of learning.

In Barbarians at the Gate one of those lizard-men makes a reappearance but maybe this time he will be an ally, albeit not a very reliable one. The episode ends with a fine old-fashioned cliffhanger.

Final Thoughts

Rip-roaring rollicking adventure just like in the good old days. Immensely entertaining and highly recommended.

Peter Gunn season 1 (1958)

Peter Gunn belongs to the first golden age of American private eye TV series. In the closing years of the 50s 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye and Richard Diamond, Private Detective all hit the airwaves. And, more interestingly, there was at the same time a crop of decidedly hardboiled TV private eyes - Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Johnny Staccato and Peter Gunn. These three series were all heavily influenced by the great American private eye movies of the 40s and early 50s and by the style that later came to be known as film noir.

This was no coincidence. The classic American B-movie had been largely destroyed by the advent of television but there was still an audience for slightly gritty crime thrillers. The TV private eye series more or less took over the audience of the crime B-picture. Of all these series Peter Gunn was probably the biggest commercial success.

Peter Gunn was created by Blake Edwards who wrote many of the episodes and directed several.

I reviewed the second season of Peter Gunn a while back (at that time the first season was unobtainable on DVD) and I was somewhat underwhelmed. Compared to Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer and Johnny Staccato it seemed rather tame and rather conventional and even a bit strait-laced. It seemed a bit too sanitised. A reader left a comment on that review suggesting that the first season might be much more to my taste. The suggestion was that Peter Gunn, like so many American TV series, started very promisingly in its first season and then in subsequent seasons fell victim to the perennial timidity of network executives.

Apart from Craig Stevens who is very good as the title character there are three other recurring characters. Lieutenant Jacoby (Herschel Bernardi) is Gunn’s patient long-suffering cop pal who is usually willing to cut Gunn some slack, sometimes against his better judgmeent. Mother runs the night-club that is more or less Gunn’s second home. Edie (Lola Albright) is Gunn’s cute chanteuse girlfriend who can’t quite get him to commit to her although she has no intention of giving up.

Selected Episodes

The opening episode, The Kill, was written and directed by Blake Edwards. It opens with the murder of a gangster. The new gangland boss who takes his place seems likely to be even nastier and more unpleasant. This episode has a definite film noir look and fell. It establishes Gunn as a guy who stocks by his friends and also as a tough guy who can be ruthless when necessary. There’s a bit on an edge to the character which was missing in the second season.

Streetcar Jones is a jazz musician suspected of murder but he doesn’t strike Gunn as the murdering type. Somebody wants to stop Gunn from proving Streetcar’s innocence. An OK episode.

In The Vicious Dog Pete has to see a man about a dog. A journalist believes that a dog attack was an attempt to intimidate him, and Pete agrees. The dog angle makes this a bit more interesting than most stories of this type.

In The Blind Pianist there’s only one witness to a murder and he’s blind. He can’t identity the killer. Or can he? And if he can, will he?The audience knows the identity of the killer so the interest is in Gunn’s attempt to prove a case with only a blind witness. Not a bad story.

The Frog is a small-fry gangster who wants to talk with with Pete but when Pete gets to the meet all he finds is the Frog’s hat floating on the water. The Frog’s boss, mobster Swink, obviously had him killed but why did he have the Frog’s apartment searched afterwards? A routine plot but fairly hard-edged by the standards of this series. It works pretty well.

In The Chinese Hangman Pete is hired by a religious cult leader to find a woman who stole $200,000 from him. Pete tracks her down but with unexpected consequences. A much darker episode and a very good one.

In Lynn's Blues Edie is worried about an old friend, a night-club-singer named Lynn. Pete goes to see her and it’s obvious she’s seriously scared. She’s got a gangster boyfriend, she wants out and he doesn’t see it that way. A fairly routine episode but still very enjoyable.

In Rough Buck a very promising boxer, Tony Triano, is shot and it looks like a professional hit. But everybody liked Tony. Nobody had a motive to kill him.

In Image of Sally Si Robbin, just out of prison, kills a guy. The man he killed was a professional killer. It was self-defence but he can’t prove that so he’s charged with murder. Si hires Gunn, not to beat the murder rap but to find his girl Sally. At least she used to be his girl. Now she’s Joe Nord’s girl and Joe Nord is a big-time criminal and a nasty piece of work. Pete gets some help from some beatniks (who look the way middle-aged men who’ve never seen a beatnik imagine beatniks to look). It’s another noirish episode with Si being not such a bad guy but he’s got himself into deep trouble, and Sally certainly has some femme fatale qualities.

The Man with the Scar is a very good episode. A young man is with his girlfriend when a man with a scar interrupts them, there’s a fight and the man with the scar is killed. The girl tells him not to worry, that it will be taken care of, but actually he has very good reason to worry.

The Torch is a case of arson and murder. The widow of the man killed in the fire is a suspect. She hires Pete to prove her innocence. It’s a fairly straightforward story but well executed.

The Jockey is an impossible crime story. The girlfriend of a successful jockey is a night-club singer. In between sets she goes up onto the roof. This time she fell through the skylight and was killed. There was nobody up there with her and nobody could have been up there with her, so it was accident. But the jockey thinks she was murdered. Pete doesn’t know if it was murder or not but he’s been given a case so he’ll do some digging. And he digs up something that really interests him. Not a bad story, but just a tad predictable.

In Sisters of the Friendless a young man is facing a murder charge. He has an alibi but there’s a problem. The one person who can confirm his alibi cannot do so for rather unusual reasons. A low-key story, pretty lightweight.

The Leaper is about a man who jumps to his death from a tall building. Except he didn’t jump. Pete doesn’t know that yet but he’s looking into the case for the widow. The curious thing is that the leaper was a professional carnival performer, a human fly. It’s Lieutenant Jacoby who makes the vital connection this time.  A good episode.

The Fuse is a very film noir episode. Honest union boss Carlo Matzi is murdered. Everyone knows that crooked union boss Jake Lynch was behind the murder. So why is Pete working for Lynch? He has his reasons. A solid story that isn’t dazzlingly original but it’s executed with a lot of style. Another very good episode.

Let's Kill Timothy tries to be whimsical but misfires. We get a couple of awful songs, we get Pete hired as bodyguard to a seal and some excruciating comic relief from a beatnik artist.

In The Missing Night Watchman (written by Blake Edwards) Pete is hired to investigate a robbery. Valuable jewels were stolen from a shop and the owner doesn’t want the police involved. He’s afraid of losing his best customer, the irascible Mr Lansdown (a wonderful performance by Murray Matheson). There’s also the matter of the missing night watchman and what’s going on with Mr Lansdown’s Buddha? An enjoyable romp.

Murder on the Midway is a carnival story and I just love murder mysteries with a carnival setting. The magician is doing his usual trick, making his glamorous lady assistant disappear, only she winds up dead. Pete thinks Rowena, who does the girly show, knows something. Rowena is one of those dangerous blondes, the type that men should avoid but they never do. A pretty decent plot with several plausible suspects. A very good episode.

Pecos Pete takes Pete to Texas. A rich cattleman wants to find his brother’s murderer. Pete has to do the cowboy thing, and it’s a fun if rather slight story.

Scuba has a great opening sequence and the plot revolves around scuba diving. There is murder as well, of course. A fine episode.

The title of Edie Finds a Corpse is totally accurate. She does find a corpse. In her bathroom. She is not happy about it. Pete isn’t happy about it either.

The Dirty Word has a nice slightly off-kilter atmosphere. A low-rent crooked private eye named Sam Hayes is framed for the murder of a rich guy named Sinclair. Pete doesn’t approve of Sam but he owes him a favour. Sinclair was surrounded by oddballs and there were things about him that didn’t add up. A good taut plot and good atmosphere.

The Ugly Frame begins with a nice old guy who runs a delicatessen getting murdered. Murdered for fourteen dollars. Lieutenant Jacoby had known the old guy for years. Jacoby wants the killer really badly. But maybe the case is not as straightforward as it looks. Jacoby ends up in an awkward situation. Maybe Pete can get him out of it. A solid episode.

The Lederer Story begins when a rich lady yacht owner, Mrs Lederer, drops dead in Mother’s. Before expiring she had asked to speak to Peter Gunn. Pete figures he’s more or less morally obliged to find her killer. Yes, her killer. The lady died from poison. Pete is convinced that the answer to the puzzle will be found on Mrs Lederer’s yacht. But he finds that boats can be dangerous places. A good solid episode although the mystery isn’t that hard to figure out.

In Keep Smiling a guy from out of town winds up dead. That’s Lieutenant Jacoby’s problem. Pete’s problem is a client in town for a bowling conclave who’s fallen victim to a blackmail racket. Since the dead guy was also in town for the bowling conclave Pete figures that his problem and Jacoby’s problem are probably the same problem. All Pete has to do is set himself up as an obvious blackmail victim. A fairly straightforward episode but enjoyable enough.

Breakout begins with a prison break. Then a guy hires Pete to find somebody but Pete is pretty suspicious. And Frank Norbert doesn’t want to be found. A solid film noirish episode with double-crosses and betrayal, and a father who can’t figure out what went wrong with his boy.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed the first season more than the first. It has a bit more of an edge. It’s a bit more noir. Not as good as Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer or Johnny Staccato but still entertaining. Recommended.

Noir (2001 anime series)

Noir is a 2001 anime TV series.

I’m not going to give any plot details other than those pertaining to the first of the 26 episodes.

It opens with a cute blonde French girl (we later find out that her name is Mireille) in Paris. It looks like the opening for a fluffy romance story. Then the killings begin, and a dozen men are left dead.

Mireille really is a charming, pretty very feminine young lady. The only thing unusual about her is the way she earns her living. She is a hitwoman. A killer for hire. One of the best in the business.

But most of the killings were not done by Mireille. They were done by Kirika Yumura, a young very cute Japanese girl. Kirika knows nothing about herself. She doesn’t think Kirika Yumura is her real name. She has no idea how she came to know so much about guns, or became so good at killing.

It’s all a bit perplexing to Mireille. It’s obvious that some very determined very dangerous people are out to kill her. Teaming up with Kirika seems not only logical but necessary. After that she will have to kill Kirika. Mireille has survived in this business by never leaving loose ends behind, or living witnesses. She likes Kirika, but she will still have to kill her. She does think that it is only fair to let Kirika know about her intentions.

Mireille and Kirika work well together as a team but it’s increasingly clear that they have mysterious and powerful enemies out to get them. It may have something to do with Kirika’s past.

Maybe the Soldats have the answers, but the two girls know nothing about the Soldats other than the fact they exist.

This is not a straightforward Chicks With Guns crime story. There is as much cool Chicks With Guns action as you could possibly desire but there’s something deeper going on. That something deeper may have a rational explanation but in the world of anime you can never be sure. You can never be sure that you’re dealing with a single level of reality, or any level of reality at all. Early on the viewer has no idea what the central narrative will tun out to be.

Deadly lady assassins were nothing new in 2001 but Noir is a long way from the world of movies like La Femme Nikita.

The relationship between the two women is complex. They do not appear to be lovers but there’s an emotional bond, possibly a sisterly bond. These are two women who are both, for different reasons, cut off from all normal social interactions. It is highly likely that Mireille has never had a normal friendship with another woman. She believes herself to be totally self-reliant. She has never needed anybody. She knows that the sensible thing to do is simply to kill Kirika. Kirika is a threat. Kirika knows much too much about her and about her line of work.

But although Mireille thinks a lot about killing Kirika she seems unable to do so. She rationalises this. She needs to know Kirika’s secret. She does not want to admit that her reasons for not killing the girl might be emotional.

There is such a tangled web of female emotional relationships in this series. Female friendships, female loyalties and betrayals, female jealousies. And they’re all complex and ambiguous relationships. Mireille appears to develop some kind of maternal feeling toward Kirika. Or perhaps it’s a big sister-little sister thing. Mireille’s feelings towards Kirika evolve. Perhaps they are growing closer, or perhaps they are growing apart. Perhaps they are learning to trust each other, or perhaps in other ways Mireille is learning to trust Kirika less.

What’s nice is the “show, don’t tell” approach taken. Mireille never tells us how she feels about Kirika. We figure it out from her actions and from gestures and looks.

It is very important not to jump to conclusions when viewing this series, and not to interpret it in the light of 2020s ideological obsessions. Mireille and Kirika are not lesbians. The Japanese have fewer hangups about sex than Americans and this is very much an anime for grown-ups. Had the writers wanted to suggest that there was a lesbian component to the relationship they would certainly have done so. But they don’t. This is a series with philosophical, religious, moral and spiritual agendas. It is not about sexual identities or gender identities.

It is fairly obvious that Kirika and Mireille are both virgins. This seems to be part and parcel of their calling. For these two women killing is not a job, it really is a calling. It requires single-mindedness. There is no room for sexual involvements. As the series progresses it becomes more and more obvious that they really are in fact virgins. They are not like other women. They are more like virgin priestesses of death. We also might suspect that for these girls killing is a substitute for sex. As long as there’s killing to be done who needs sex?

We have to remember that these women are killers. It’s no good trying to tell ourselves that Mireille is really a nice girl and she only kills bad people. She’s a ruthless paid killer. She’ll kill anyone she’s paid to kill.

Early on you might assume this will be a Chicks With Guns crime thriller, or maybe spy thriller, a bit along the lines of La Femme Nikita. But as the series unfolds we discover that it’s something very very different. It’s a totally different sort of movie.

About three-quarters of the way through we get a huge plot twist. Followed by an even bigger twist. Followed in quick succession by two more. Everything we thought we knew will have to be rethought. It’s not just plot twists. At various stages we have to rethink our assumptions about key characters, and key character relationships. It’s not that we’ve been misled or that the characterisations are inconsistent - it’s more that we keep on discovering new layers. The picture we had in our mind wasn’t wrong because we were being lied to but because that picture was so very incomplete.

Kirika and Mireille do not understand themselves. Kirika doesn’t know how she came to be such an efficient killing machine, and she doesn’t know why she doesn’t feel sad when she kills people. Mireille’s memories of her own past are incomplete and are false in the sense that she was too young to understands what was happening. Kirika and Mireille will learn a lot about themselves. Some of it they won’t like.

This is the kind of series that makes me love anime TV series so much. It’s not afraid to confound expectations. Very highly recommended.

Naked City season 2 (1960)

Having watched and written about selected episodes in the second season of Naked City (which originally went to air on ABC from late 1960 to mid-1961) I’m now filling in the blanks. The more I see of this series the more I love it. Everything about it is unconventional, offbeat and original. Even the outrageous episode titles.

It’s not unconventional just for the sake of being unconventional. These are complex literate scripts that are concerned with exploring the psychological underpinnings of crimes. Why do some people go off the rails so spectacularly? The scripts are also concerned with another question - if we understand why people do bizarre and anti-social things does this actually help the police in dealing with these issues? Does it help society in dealing with damaged and dangerous people? The series rarely offers easy or comforting answers. Sometimes it’s even difficult to tell good from evil.

Naked City takes a very different approach compared to a series like Dragnet. Dragnet aimed for everyday realism - ordinary cops investigating ordinary crimes, the sorts of crimes that are committed every day in a big city. And they’re solved by following established procedures. Joe Friday relies on legwork, not sudden flashes of insight, to solve crimes.

In Naked City the cops are very much ordinary cops but the crimes they investigate are cases that are a little bit out of the ordinary. The aim of the series is to get inside the minds of the criminals and sometimes that’s easier if the crimes are spectacular or unusual. The crimes don’t have to be realistic. In reality the police do encounter bizarre crimes but in Naked City most of the cases have a touch of the bizarre. The bizarre nature of the cases is used to illuminate some dark recesses of the human psyche.

Of course a series that takes a deliberately offbeat approach is going to have its share of failures, of episodes that just don’t quite work. The amazing this is that this series has so few misfires. And even the misfires are interesting.

There have been other fine cop shows since Naked City but none has ever been able to equal this great series. It remains a uniquely brilliant achievement.

With some fine location shooting it also provides a wonderful glimpse of early 1960s New York City.

Episode Guide

The Pedigree Sheet begins with two dead bodies in a crashed car. And a live 17-year-old girl who was also in the car. One of the dead men is the foreman of the jury in a major criminal case. The other dead guy is a hit-man. And nobody knows who the girl is but the police are pretty sure she’s the key to solving the case. That’s what the story seems to be about, but it isn’t really. It’s actually about the girl, a good girl gone bad, and her father, once a famous lawyer and now a drunken bum, and how they got to be that way.

So it’s a pretty good mystery story and a psychological study. Trying to combine the two is the sort of ambitious thing that Naked City would do throughout its run and what’s truly remarkable is how often they did it successfully. And this story is definitely one of those successes.

A Succession of Heartbeats is a whodunit. Millionaire playboy Ben Harlow is shot to death along with his latest girlfriend, a married woman. Harlow has lots of girlfriends. The list of people who would have liked to kill him is practically endless. There are at least three people who could have done so. Some of the clues point to one of the suspects, some at others. But this is Naked City so it’s not just a solid mystery story but a character study as well. Can you put a life back together again once it’s been broken? And guilt can destroy the innocent as well as the guilty. A very fine episode penned by Stirling Siliphant.

In Down the Long Night Norman Garry tells the detectives at the 65th Precinct that a man named Max Evar is going to kill him. A year earlier Garry's printing factory burnt to the ground. Max Evar’s house, which was next door, was destroyed as well with Evar's life and child being killed in the blaze. Evar is convinced that Garry was responsible for the fire. Since Evar hasn’t committed an actual crime there’s nothing the cops can do but Adam Flint has a bad feeling about it and decides to look into it anyway. Evar runs a carnival funhouse and his family has for generations specialised in illusion, magic and the manufacture of terror for entertainment. He’s the kind of guy who would certainly know how to use fear as a weapon and that’s what he seems to be doing.

This is another intriguing psychological study, in this case a study of two men. And the funhouse climax is extremely good. A very fine episode.

To Walk in Silence is a reluctant witness story. A very respectable man, a Mr Weston, witnesses a murder in an illegal betting establishment. In fact he himself suffers a minor gunshot wound in the course of the murder. He’s not willing to talk to the police since it might threaten his professional and social position. What he fails to understand is that he might not have a choice. It features a good performance by Clause Rains as Weston. As a character study its interesting although the plot is rather predictable. An OK episode.

In Killer with a Kiss a psycho killer is stalking cops. He’s killed one and almost killed another. In the latest attempt he pretended to be a blind man. And he kisses his victims on the hand. The breakthrough in the case comes when Adam discovers the headless toy soldier. This episode is another attempt to grapple with psychological disturbance. It works quite well.

The Human Trap is the story of a murder among the rich and fashionable. Playboy Tobias Bennington Tennant III is dead with an icepick in him. Dress designer Walda Price claims she killed him in self-defence after he tried to maul her teenaged daughter Jessica. Adam Flint thinks the story doesn’t quite add up, and his boss Lieutenant Mike Parker doesn’t think so either, but neither woman will change her story. Jack Lord gives a great guest starring performance as Jessica’s devoted mobster father. A very good episode.

In Bullets Cost Too Much Adam Flint is in a bar when an armed robbery takes place and a man is killed. Adam thought about drawing his gun but decided that it would have put too many people at risk. Now the press is after his blood. And a young doctor has to make a choice between his brother and one of the hold-up men who was shot in the robbery. It’s a typical Naked City story, with the emphasis on the effects of crime on people’s lives rather than on the solving of the crime. And it’s an extremely good story.

Landscape with Dead Figures is another wonderfully offbeat episode. Famous dead artist Albert Blakely escapes from a mental hospital. He doesn’t know he’s famous and he doesn’t know he’s dead. But he’s worth a lot of money. In fact he was worth more dead than when he was alive. Everybody assumes he’s just a mental patient. Everyone but Adam. Adam thanks there’s something screwy about the story of the escaped mental patient who suddenly starts defying paintings. His obsession nearly gets him kicked off the force. The vital clues are in pictures done by Blakely - a doll without a face, two men in front of a pile of rocks. Wildly offbeat yes, but a fascinating story. Great stuff.

The Well-Dressed Termite starts with the accidental death of a telephone linesman. Only the guy was no telephone linesman. So what was he doing in a phoney telephone company truck and who was his partner doing with the telephone lines? And there’s a woman, who is currently divorcing her husband. He’s a rich businessman but a social nobody. Now she’s found a new man who is rich and a social somebody. But how does this relate to the dead guy tampering with telephone lines? A typically ingenious episode with a jigsaw puzzle that has to be pieced together but the cops have no idea what the final picture is supposed to look like. Great stuff.

The Day It Rained Mink involves the theft of a million dollars’ worth of fur coats. It’s a clever plan but the focus of the story its on the motivations behind the crime rather the crime itself. Thwarted ambitions, greed and lust are pretty good motivations. And a million dollars is a big payoff, but easy money isn’t always the solution. Lust in particular is a dangerous motivation.  In Naked City the biggest danger to criminals is not necessarily getting caught.

The Deadly Guinea Pig is another of the countless stories about Nazis that were such an obsessive feature of American TV at this time. Unfortunately they tend to be rather predictable and this one is no exception.

The Fault in Our Stars is the story of an actor named Donny Benton Donny’s career is going nowhere and he’s broke so he turns to murder. He’s so self-absorbed that he just assumes that his career is more important than the lives of a few dumb schmucks of cab drivers. Tracking him down proves to be surprisingly difficult and finding evidence that would stand up in court is even more of a problem. Typically for this series the story takes some very dark turns, much much darker than you’d expect from network TV in 1961.

The story also offers some fascinating insights into the strange unreal world of the theatre and the even stronger psychology of actors. A bravura performance by Roddy McDowall as Donny makes this another exceptional episode.

Tombstone for a Derelict is another Nazi episode. Or is it? A homeless person is brutally murdered by four young men. Three other murders follow in quick succession. The only clues are Nazi stickers posted on the wall near two of the victims. And an odd letter to the editor of a daily newspaper, and an even odder complain to the police by a concerned citizen. It seems they are dealing with rampaging Nazis. But it’s not that simple. Nowhere near that simple. This story seems like it’s going to one of the rare misfires but it ends up making sense, in a nonsensical way. So it’s an interesting episode.

A Memory of Crying is another attempt to deal with psychological abnormality. Willard Manson is a man with no human feelings, until he marries his fifth wife Jessica. He still doesn’t know he has emotions until she dies in childbirth. He then refuses to accept her death and cracks up, but he cracks up in a dangerous way. He convinces himself he needs money to pay for the hospital and he will go to any lengths to get that money. This one is perhaps not entirely convincing but at least it’s an interesting attempt. When an episode of this series doesn’t quite work it’s usually because it’s been too ambitious and the ambition at least has to be respected. And Luther Adler’s performance almost makes it work.

A Very Cautious Boy is a hitman (played by Peter Falk of all people) who kills with his bare hands. He is a karate expert. His latest target is a lawyer who is causing problems for an elderly restaurateur and ex-racketeer. Along the way he kills an ill-tempered bouncer and that’s what initially attracts the attention of the police. Adam Flint only appears briefly in this episode so it’s left to Frank and Lieutenant Parker to solve this one. And it’s a story will some cool twists.

Economy of Death is not as obvious as you think it’s going to be. Lazslo Lubasz escaped from Hungary in 1956 and has been paying Miklos Konya to find his missing granddaughter. Then Lazslo finds that Miklos has been lying to him, Lazslo’s wife dies of grief and Lazslo blames Miklos. But then there are a number of plot twists to make things more interesting. This is one of those episodes in which we discover that evil deeds are not always committed by evil men. Sometimes they’re committed by good men. And justice is a complicated thing. A very good episode despite a hammy performance by Sam Jaffe as Lazslo.

Final Thoughts

Naked City is one of the all-time great TV cop shows, very character-driven rather than plot-driven. Must-see TV.